


Forget Me Not

by Jewels (bjewelled)



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Trills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 14:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjewelled/pseuds/Jewels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arjin spent his whole life, determined to succeed at the Initiate program and become a Trill host. Then the Dominion come along, and life turns out to be more complicated than he'd imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget Me Not

**Author's Note:**

> Arjin was a guest star of the week character, the first (and only) initiate that Jadzia ever supervised in the DS9 season 2 ep "Playing God". For some reason, I always wondered about Arjin's fate.

When war broke out, Arjin Riev was almost surprised at how easy the decision was to make. Before the day was out, he had sent a subspace query to Starfleet, and by the end of the week, his reply had arrived, and his resignation from the Symbiosis Commission was officially logged. He was halfway through packing his belongings when Laria, his personal advisor, entered the room, looking confused and upset.

"I don't understand," she said, in a pleading tone, "You've been approved for joining. There isn't a symbiote available right now, but you're certainly on the list. You'll probably have one available in the next month or two. Why are you throwing your future away?"

"Because I have to," Arjin said, moving her out of the way so he could take the socks out of his drawer. "Starfleet's accepting me as an enlisted officer, a pilot. They need skilled pilots."

"You're going off to fight?" Laria's voice rose in alarm. "But... you're not some sort of... of soldier!"

"I'm doing what I need to do." Arjin found that it was easy to say when he believed the words.

"You'll be out of contention." Laria folded her arms. "The institute won't accept you on readmittance. It won't be like Jadzia. She was a hard working science student. You'll just be someone who threw over the symbiotes to play at war."

Arjin sealed his bag, and gave his room one last look over to make sure he hadn't missed anything. "Maybe I won't ask for readmittance."

Laria looked at him like he'd committed some sort of cardinal sin, and he supposed, in her eyes, he had.

**

Starfleet, true to Arjin's predictions, had eagerly snapped up a highly trained pilot who was willing to forgo academy training, and he was handed a uniform, put through six weeks of basic, and assigned to the _USS Sugihara_ as a junior helmsman. Two months into his assignment he became primary helmsman due to a trio of Jem'Hadar raiders and a hull breach that killed fourteen people.

Five months into his assignment, the first officer was promoted to captaincy of the hastily commissioned _Devastator_ , and his replacement, Commander Paren Tau, was a joined Trill. Arjin wasn't sure why he was surprised at that, but he found he was more surprised by the pang that hit him when Tau's eyes settled on him, and Arjin felt the weight of centuries behind the gaze. He'd managed to convince himself that the joining wasn't what he wanted, and he wasn't expecting to be suddenly reminded of what he'd given up.

He wasn't expecting Tau to approach him in the mess hall, with a tray in his hands, and to ask if he could join Arjin for a meal.

"Sorry," he said, when he managed to clear his face of his slightly shocked expression. "Most officers don't associate with the enlisted much."

Paren Tau was a fairly attractive man, a fact Arjin realised as soon as Tau grinned at him. "Maybe I thought I'd have a chat with the only other Trill on board. No one else in the Federation has any appreciation for decent lethin."

Arjin was expecting that to be that; Tau would eat with him once or twice, and then he would become more familiar with the senior officers, and Arjin wouldn't see him outside of his bridge shifts. Instead, Arjin saw him more often. First it was whatever meal synched up on their shifts, and then it was late evenings in Tau's quarters, exchanging stories about their times as initiates, or places they both knew from Trill.

The stories got more detailed as the weeks passed. He heard about all eight of Tau's previous hosts, and he related the story of his utterly disastrous initiate field training. Tau sympathised when he talked about the horror of learning that Dax was to be his field docent, and looked fascinated by the idea of a universe being snagged on a warp nacelle. For the first time in what seemed like his entire life, Arjin found he was enjoying being around someone just for the sake of their company. He'd made friends in Starfleet in a way he never had in the Institute, but Paren Tau was something else.

Arjin should have realised, with the way the war was going, that such things couldn't last.

**

Arjin had gotten very good at making up evasive manoeuvres as he went. The Jem'Hadar were quick to adapt to set patterns, but the Sugihara was agile enough to respond quickly and effectively to a helmsman who strained his creativity to avoid their firing. The Sugihara was part of a four ship task force that had been sent to scout the Alpha-Beta Quadrant boundary to investigate reports that the Jem'Hadar were pushing inwards. Unfortunately, the reports were accurate, and they'd run across a Jem'Hadar scout group. The _Dawn Respite_ had been destroyed in the opening volleys, but the remaining ships manage to hold their own, and Arjin didn't realise until he sent the Sugihara hurtling port-wards to evade fire that never arrived that they'd won, and he looked up from the helm console to take in the rest of the bridge that he'd only registered in his periphery as a mess of dangling optical cables and of shouting crewmembers.

He saw Commander Tau lying on the deck, curled inwards, but didn't realise what that meant until he was summoned to sickbay half an hour later, in the middle of helping to patch the ops console into usefulness. He was brought to the surgical bay, and through the transparent window he could see Doctor T'Vik working with quick, precise movements over the too-still body of the ship's first officer.

"I... I don't understand."

Captain Hester was a mature Human female, her hair steel grey and with a glint in her eye that Arjin had quickly learned to respect after he'd come under her command. "Don't pretend to stupidity, helmsman. Your file indicates you were approved for joining. You know exactly what this means."

Arjin stared at Paren Tau, and hunched his shoulders. "Yes, sir. But... is there no chance he'll recover?"

"According to the Doctor, no. That last attack destroyed the stasis units, and, frankly, Mister Riev, even if we weren't too far away from Trill, then there's no way in hell I would turn this ship around to save one crewman, even if he is my first officer."

Arjin couldn't look at her. "I thought I'd thrown away this ever happening. And... and for it to be Tau..."

Hester's hand on his shoulder surprised him, even more her expression of sympathy. It made the lines on her face more pronounced. "I know you were friends. So I know that you don't want him to die any more than I do."

Arjin looked at the still body of Paren, and realised that T'Vik was removing the symbiont, the host already dead, and placing it into a portable transfer unit. It would have limited power. Tau wouldn't be able to survive long in it. "No," he said, "I don't."

**

Arjin had once dreamed of the day he would lie down, and the doctors would stand over him, symbiont cradled in their hands, and change his life forever. He didn't imagine that he would be in a half-destroyed sickbay, the lights flickering and the distinct smell of charred isolinear boards making it through the sterile field, with a Vulcan doctor looking too tired and intense for one of her kind. There were other patients in the medical bay being treated, their moans and the screams of alarms was a chaotic, anxiety-inducing background.

"I don't know what to say to make you feel better," she said to him, brusquely, while she prepared him for the joining, administering the local anaesthetic and cutting open his abdomen.

"You could lie to me," he suggested.

T'Vik looked him in the eye. She said, clearly, "I have done this several times and know exactly what to expect."

"Now I feel a lot better," he said, and T'Vik spared a moment to touch his shoulder in reassurance before she reached for Tau, and Arjin's life changed forever.

**

Traditionally, a new host had several days to adjust to taking a symbiont. At the very least, the initial three days, when rejection was likely to occur, were closely monitored, and the new host was encouraged to spend time exploring their memories, adjusting to their new existences. Arjin, by contrast, was ejected from sickbay as soon as T'Vik was confident that the physical process of joining was stable enough for him to move without tearing the newly formulated blood and nerve connections, in order to give the bed to someone who needed it more. His body felt the wrong size, and he tripped over his own feet twice before he remembered the size of his own stride and managed to figure out how to walk down the corridor without embarrassing himself.

Lidanya had never grown out of the habit, he thought, and laughed at the recollection of opening doors into his face, and falling face first into the public gardens in Telva city, at which point he suddenly realised he'd never been to Telva city, and that the memories that were so vivid in his mind's eye weren't his, but Tau's.

He felt dizzy, and was grateful that no one was around to see him stumble against the bulkhead and empty his stomach as the nausea overwhelmed him. It wouldn't do for the crew to see their first officer-

No. He wasn't Paren. He was Arjin. The helmsman. It was only because he was repeating it to himself that he stopped himself from walking up to Olivia on the bridge, throwing her a grin, and asking if she missed him. Olivia Hester was his commanding officer, not his friend, and she stared warily at him as he hesitated halfway across the bridge, trying to remember which station he was supposed to head to: the helm that was Arjin's, or the tactical station that had been Paren's.

"Mister... Tau," she said, testing the name out and looking uncertain. The rest of the bridge crew was also staring at him, the repair crews studiously pretending they weren't doing the same by fiddling with their tools. "I take it the joining was a success."

He grinned at her, and Olivia looked briefly taken aback. "So it seems," he said, and tried to project reassurance. Yeska had learned to do that. He'd been a large man, too often intimidating, and he'd learnt a lot about body language to try and make himself appear friendlier. Later, he would realise that a lot of the open staring was in part due to the difference in his stance, in the way he carried himself.

Olivia looked unhappy, and was having trouble meeting his eyes. It was the most natural thing in the world to step closer, and to take her hand in both of his, forcing her to look into his eyes. He ignored the audible gasp from the science officer. "Paren didn't suffer," he told her, "He was proud to serve as your first officer. He lives on, in me, in Arjin Tau."

Olivia's face cleared, but she still looked thoughtful. "So does that make you my first officer, or my helmsman?"

Arjin had learned in the institute that non-joiner species had a hard time adjusting to a new host, if they had been close with the previous one. He just gave her a smile and squeezed her hand. "Arjin Riev was your helmsman. Arjin Tau is the same man, with just some extra memories." It wasn't entirely true, but it was true enough for her needs.

A moment's hesitation, and then she squeezed his hand back, and let go of him quickly, clearly embarrassed to be having a personal discussion in the middle of the bridge. "Then take your station, Mister... Tau."

**

Arjin managed to remember which host he was for the remainder of his duty shift, but that plan turned awry when he walked into his quarters at the end of the day, exhausted and dirty from crawling around in the Jeffries tubes, helping Engineer Rulith find a blown out isolinear array in the navigational array, to discover that he'd walked into Paren's quarters without thinking.

He looked around, thinking that he ought to leave, but he felt so comfortable and at home that he couldn't bring himself to leave, go down the two decks needed to get to the quarters he shared with an ensign who worked on tactical, and who had a habit of snoring dreadfully. Instead, Arjin kicked off his boots, and climbed on his bed fully clothed, and fell asleep almost immediately, the physical trauma of the joining, not to mention a day of combat and repairs, taking its toll.

As he slept, he dreamed.

_He is Paren, and he is dying._

_He pushed Olivia out of the way when the ceiling support cracked as the hull buckled, and he feels agony where the beam has crushed his ribs. Breathing is nearly impossible._

_He sees Arjin, sitting at his station, utterly focused on his job of piloting the ship out of harm's way, and he feels sorry._

_"Paren," Olivia says fiercely, as gentle hands touch him, "You'll be alright. You're not going to die on me."_

_Yes, I am, he wants to tell her, but it hurts too much._

Arjin woke up, clutching at his ribs and convinced that he was dying, that his ribs had been shattered, driving bone into his lungs, and he gasped. He lay there, curled up, breathing heavily, until he dredged up memory of meditation breathing, and managed to slow his gasping until he wasn't hyperventilating, and it was only his heart that thudded in his ears.

Traumatic deaths were always hard for symbionts to deal with, or so Arjin remembered from his classes at the institute. He'd never thought that he would have to deal with such a situation himself. Focus on happier memories to displace the recollection of death, or so his instructors had said. He should have had a guide, a trained counsellor from the Commission to walk him through this initial, first tentative explorations of past hosts. Instead, all Arjin could do was dredge up old memories of training, and try to fumble through himself.

He cast his mind back, feeling out the thread of memories that was uniquely Paren, distinct from Arjin or any of the others. It was a disorienting feeling, when he realised it was looking at memories that Arjin shared, just from the other side of the conversation.

_The Kal'toh board between them sits in a state of apparent disarray. Kal'toh has only left Vulcan and achieved popularity in the last ten years, so it's refreshing to play a game that Tau has never encountered before. Of course, Arjin claims that his single lifetime gives him a clarity of thought, uncluttered by centuries of experiences, that Paren lacks._

_He's almost afraid to admit that Arjin might be right. On Paren's turn, he transformed the semi-recognisable structure into something hideous looking, making them both laugh. Now Arjin bites his lip as he turns his head, figuring out where to place his next piece. Paren wants to lean across the small table, pluck the tiny metal stick from Arjin's hands, and kiss him thoroughly. It's not a new sensation; Paren has had these sort of thoughts ever since he'd first caught sight of him in the mess hall, frowning at a padd._

_But this is the first time he's felt that stomach twisting sensation of freefall, and recognised it from eight lifetimes of falling in love. That moment when you realise you've actually been in love for some time, but never noticed._

_Fingers touch the back of his hand, and Paren realises, with a start, that he has lapsed into reverie. Arjin looks at him with clear and plain amusement. "Your move," he says._

Arjin groaned unhappily, and rolled onto his side. Feelings and sensations, all centred around the face he was used to seeing in the mirror, welled up. He rubbed a hand across his stomach, feeling the unfamiliar lump of the symbiont wedged in between his other organs.

"Why didn't he tell me?" he whispered. "Why didn't I tell him?"

Tau, of course, didn't answer. Arjin was Tau, there was no distinction between them. He could only ask the question of himself. He rolled off the bed and stumbled into the bathroom, and was transfixed by his reflection in the mirror. Arjin had only ever seen his face in such objects, the face that Paren remembered, had fantasised about touching, caressing, had been subtly off, different.

For a moment, Arjin felt irrationally angry at Paren, for keeping his mouth shut, for never saying anything. But Arjin never had time for anything outside of initiate training, certainly never women, and men had never broached his mind as a consideration. He had no idea whether his amenity to the idea of Paren showing an interest with him came from the host or the symbiont. He wondered at the fact that such thoughts didn't seem to particularly disturb him.

It was a mistake to come to these quarters. Arjin shoved his feet back into his boots hastily, and nearly ran out of the door.

**

"Normally I would be packing up Commander Tau's... Paren's... personal items to send them onto his family." Olivia spread her hands. "But they're yours, I suppose. You can dispose of them as you see fit."

"No," Arjin said, "They're Paren's, not mine. Pack them up. Send them to his family. I'm not Paren Tau anymore."

"No," Olivia said, shrewdly. "I suppose you're not. Paren hated coffee."

Arjin glanced at the cup of the bitter Human brew that Olivia had given him after summoning him to her ready room. "There you go then."

"Ensign Routledge told me what happened in the Jeffries tube."

 _Ensign Routledge should keep her mouth shut,_ Arjin thought, but kept his opinions to himself. He frowned into his coffee cup.

"You're claustrophobic," Olivia said, bluntly. "And you weren't before you were joined."

"I remember being crushed to death. I just panicked for a moment, forgot who I was. I'll cope with it."

"Is this... something you need to go to Trill for?"

Arjin shook his head firmly. "No. I'm needed here. I'll be fine. It's not rejection, and the last thing the Sugihara needs is to lose a helmsman to the endless parades of tests the Commission will insist on."

Olivia conceded to his opinion on the matter, but she didn't look happy about it.

**

The Dominion War was over for three years before the Symbiosis Commission finally pinned him down long enough for the Zhian'tara. Arjin had kept his position as helmsman after the war ended, realising that he actually rather enjoyed life in Starfleet. Olivia Hester had mooted the idea of his attending the academy once or twice, but Tau remembered academy training, and he would rather stay out in space than have to go back to Earth just to sit through it all again.

"You just want your first officer back," he would tease her.

"I miss the grinning idiot," she'd say, and then usually follow it up by patting his arm, "But not as much as I might otherwise."

It was at those moments that Arjin Tau realised he was better friends with Olivia than Paren had ever had the chance to be. She was the first to agree to participate, taking on Tau's second host, Lidanya, telling bawdy jokes all night long through the ceremony, and making the Guardian blush fiercely. She also knocked over the brazier and set off the fire suppression system, something Olivia later swore Tau to secrecy over.

Arjin was willing to admit that part of the reason he'd dithered so long on performing the Zhian'tara was his uncertainty over whether he wanted to confront Paren. For months after the joining, his dreams were nothing but memories of his own death, crushed by fallen supports, and the revelation of Paren's feelings for Arjin were an occasionally uncomfortable, always disorientating, mess of feelings and recollections.

He managed to persuade Olivia to put off the Commission, claiming that the Sugihara was no fit place to conduct personal cultural rituals, no matter how important they were, until eventually, Darin Pelot, the ship's Betazoid ops manager, confronted him with it. By this point in his career, Arjin had reached the rank of Chief Petty Officer, and acquired private quarters. He didn't like to think about how he might have had to deal with having such conversations with a nosy roommate hanging around.

"It bothers you, this whole Zhian'tara thing," Darin said, without preamble. He stared at Arjin with narrowed eyes, making the liquid black of his eyes seem all the larger. "You're stalling. Why?"

"You tell me," Arjin said, not being rude in the slightest. He simply didn't feel like explaining to someone who could read his mind, and save him the problem of putting unhappy feelings into words.

Darin looked intently at him, and then harrumphed. "You're being silly," he said, "Why wouldn't you want to talk to Paren? Isn't that the point of the Zhian'tara? To achieve 'closure'?"

"There was a lot of things that went unsaid. I guess I'm afraid to hear them."

Darin moved. "Would that be so bad?"

Arjin looked down at the hand that Darin was gripping in a surprisingly tight fashion, and felt that familiar sensation of being caught in freefall. "Oh," he said.

**

Darin grinned like Paren had. It was strange to see a familiar expression on a familiar face, and not have the two match up.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Arjin asked, peering into Betazoid eyes to try and see his old friend, who could have been more, peering back at him. "Why did you wait?"

Paren's grin faltered, and he shrugged, embarrassed. "I thought we had enough time."

"It was war. People were dying every day. That was a really stupid thought."

"I never claimed to be smart." Paren offered him a smile that wasn't his usual grin, but somehow more sincere for it. "That was you, my astrophysicist friend."

"Your death was horrible. I've never felt that, never in eight lifetimes."

"It wasn't much fun to go through. I... I'm just..." Paren stepped forward, reached up with his fingers, and brushed the tips against Arjin's cheek, replicating the gesture that Arjin had so often performed in the mirror in those first confusing weeks. "I'm just sorry. I should have said something."

Arjin stepped forward and kissed him. Paren returned the embrace for a moment before stepping back and looking worried. "My host-"

Arjin took his hands in his. "Don't worry," he said, "Darin's fine with this. Trust me."

Paren looked relieved, but also a little sad. "Oh. Good. I'm glad."

Arjin squeezed his hands. "Tau's never been able to move on from that memory, that last memory, the weight of the beam, staring at the back of Arjin's... the back of _my_ head. I still see it at night."

Paren closed his eyes. "All I wanted to do was to tell you I was sorry."

"Well," Arjin said, briskly, "Now you've said it. Several times in fact. Let's move on."

**

"I hope you found what you needed," Olivia said to him.

"In more ways than one."

Olivia smiled at him, in a motherly fashion that he was unaccustomed to seeing on her face. "You're better now, aren't you?"

Arjin frowned at her, confused.

"In the turbolift," she said, gesturing in that vague direction in explanation. "You weren't staring fixedly straight ahead, enduring the ride, waiting for it to be over. The worst of your claustrophobia looked like it was gone."

For the first time in years, Arjin had awoken without feeling like there was a great weight sitting on his chest. Even Darin had noticed, saying that his general telepathic sense was "lighter now, different".

"I think the worst is over," Arjin agreed. "Paren finally got a chance to say goodbye."

 _Breathe deep,_ Paren had told him, in the last moments before the Guardian had returned his memories to Tau, _and forget about me._


End file.
